Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://parabola.io/docs/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Convert an Existing Flow
You don’t have to start from scratch to use Prowork. If you have flows built manually (or built before Prowork existed), you can enhance them with Prowork incrementally. No need to rebuild.Three ways to bring Prowork into an existing flow
1. Add Prowork steps alongside native steps
The simplest path. Open your existing flow and add Prowork steps where they’d help most. Common places to add Prowork steps:- At the start, for messy ingestion. If your flow begins with a CSV or email attachment that requires manual cleaning, replace that section with a Prowork step. Prowork handles format variation that native steps can’t.
- In the middle, for complex logic. If you have a chain of 5-6 native steps doing conditional logic, a single Prowork step can often replace them. Describe what you want in plain language and Prowork writes the logic.
- For categorization or classification. If you’re using nested If/Else columns or multi-step Find and Replace chains to categorize data, a Prowork step is simpler and handles edge cases better.
2. Ask Prowork to enhance a section
Open the chat panel in an existing flow and describe what you want to change. Prowork sees all the existing steps and works around them. Example prompts for existing flows:- “Replace the filter + math + if/else chain in the middle of this flow with a simpler approach”
- “Add a section that categorizes these transactions into COGS, SGA, and Marketing”
- “The vendor started sending a new file format. Update the extraction logic to handle both the old and new format”
- “Add an output that emails a summary to the finance team every Monday”
3. Rebuild from a description
If the existing flow is complex enough that incremental changes feel harder than starting fresh, you can ask Prowork to rebuild it. How to do it:- Open the existing flow and ask Prowork: “Describe what this flow does”
- Prowork generates a plain-language summary of every step and its logic
- Create a new flow
- Paste Prowork’s summary back into the chat, with any modifications: “Build this flow, but also standardize the company names and add a step that flags duplicates”
- Prowork builds the new version
- Compare outputs between old and new flows with the same input data
- Switch to the new flow when you’re confident the output matches
Keep the old flow in draft mode (don’t delete it) until the new flow has run successfully in production for at least a few cycles. This gives you a rollback path. Certain plans also have access to version history, which lets you restore previous versions of a flow without keeping a manual copy.
What to convert first
Not every pre-existing flow needs Prowork. Focus on flows where:| Signal | Why it’s a good candidate |
|---|---|
| The flow breaks when a vendor changes their file format | Prowork steps adapt to format variation |
| Someone manually cleans data before it enters the flow | An Extract or Standardize step can automate that |
| The flow has a long chain of If/Else and Find/Replace steps for categorization | A single Categorize with AI step replaces the chain |
| Only one person understands the flow’s logic | Prowork auto-generates step descriptions that make it readable by the team |
| The flow processes PDFs, emails, or unstructured text | Prowork steps are purpose-built for these inputs |
After converting
Once you’ve added Prowork steps to a flow:- Run with real data and compare output against the previous version.
- Let Prowork document the flow. Ask Prowork to generate descriptions for all steps, including the native ones you didn’t change. See How Prowork Documents Your Flow.
- Set up failure notifications so you know immediately if something behaves differently after the conversion.